Here is my experience:
2 weeks ago, I went for my first consultation. I saw a woman who practices multi-needle galvanic. My first impression when I walked into her entry lobby was, ‘dear god, what have I gotten myself into?’ The dimly lit room was cluttered with magazine articles all over the walls and old office furniture and tchachkas everywhere; I was soon to find out that her treatment room looked much the same but brighter. When I’m nervous I can be a bit quick to judge, so I took a moment to observe the cleanliness hidden behind the messiness and quieted my fears and filled out the forms required of me.
The practitioner talked about the process for 1/2 hour and then treated me for 1/2 hour (which I later discovered I had to pay for, is that normal?). Before treatment she told me that she does not use disposable needles because she has to have them specially made to use with her machine (I forgot what it’s called!) so she asked me if I would like to purchase my own set of needles for $25 that she would keep and dry-heat sterilize each time I came in. The other option was using her needles that are used on other people but she sterilizes them. Since I wasn’t sure I would be coming back to her, I chose the communal needles which in retrospect I think was a poor decision. I probably should have walked out because I kind of felt like she was scamming me. There I go being too judgmental again!
She worked on my chin. The experience was not so painful, more just very uncomfortable sometimes. She had me hold the metal thingy wrapped in a wet paper towel which gave me the heebie jeebies a little and then wiped my chin area down with rubbing alcohol. She inserted all of her needles, let them sit for a minute or so, removed the hair with a tweezer, then left the needles in a bit longer to finish the job and pulled them out. During the tweezer bit, I did feel some tugging which I have read on this site is a bad sign. To help with the uncomfortable sensation, she ran her fingernails gently across my skin near the areas being treated. This was a nice little trick and seemed to work, although I might have felt a bit less tense about it if she had been wearing gloves.
Afterwards I asked her about post treatment. She slapped some make-up colored, alcohol-smelling stuff on my chin and handed me an icebag wrapped in a paper towel. She recommended that I wash when I needed to with a mild cleanser like cetaphyl cleanser or something. As long as it wasn’t drying like neutrogina or cetaphyl for acne-prone skin (the 2 milder soaps I had at home). I asked about tea tree oil and she said not to use it because it is an oil and she didn’t feel comfortable recommending an oil for post-treatment. When I got home I washed off the icky smear on my chin with cetaphyl for acne-prone skin (after shelling out 65 bucks that I didn’t expect to, I couldn’t afford to buy something new just then) then I didn’t touch it for 8 hours. I gently washed again before going to sleep and put some aloe vera on. In the morning the area was a bit red and irritated. I washed off the aloe vera gel and used some tea tree oil (I trust James and co. more than this electrologist).
Things were looking better, but a few days later I seriously broke out on my chin! It’s only starting to get better now 2 weeks later.
I don’t think I’ll be going back to that electrologist because I was uncomfortable with her and her practice and I should trust my gut instead or berating myself for being too judgmental.
Wow, that is a long post. I just wanted to share this experience in the hopes that it would spur some helpful discussion or help others in some way. Thanks for your time!